


Painting the White Roses Red

by wonderfulchaos



Category: Servamp (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, Bad Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-22
Updated: 2017-01-22
Packaged: 2018-09-19 03:43:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9417074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wonderfulchaos/pseuds/wonderfulchaos
Summary: Mikuni makes a house call after years of silence, and it’s off with their heads.





	

**Author's Note:**

> _“I can’t go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.”_  
>  \- Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

“Hey, hey, little guy.”

Misono didn’t open his eyes, hand pressed against the gaping wound on his side. It hurt and he was struggling to breathe; he could barely stay standing. He could faintly hear Lily calling his name, but there was a noose around his neck and he couldn’t reply back. The noose tightened, but his feet still skimmed the ground. He was too young, perhaps, to bear the weight of his sins. Too young to know more of those sins than the eternal question: _do I have any right to be alive?_

It seemed like Mikuni had made that decision for him. It seemed like Jeje supported that decision. And Lily, he had failed Lily.

“No, Misono, don’t!”

It was better to let go, before a fate worse than this befell them. He thought, tired and world weary, _Goodbye, Lily, I hope you find a better name one day_. The noose slowly faded away, the Lead dispersing back to its Master; and Misono’s felt his own disappear completely. Gone, forsaken, a returned gift alongside a name. He could hear the crack of glass and the last tick of a clock, but he still didn’t look back, too afraid to open his eyes.

“Ahhh, come on, don’t be that way.”

There was the sound of steps coming closer, the tap of boots splashing in blood, and he felt someone patting him on the cheek. It was hard to believe it had come to this. He hadn’t even had a chance to talk with him, to tell Mikuni what he had been meaning to tell him. All alone, Mikuni had been struggling with the truth and the weight of past sins. The weight he had used to kill their father before coming here. An inevitability, then, that it should end like this.

“Hey, hey, little guy,” repeated Mikuni, “won’t you give your big brother a hug?”

He heard Lily - no, All of Love - call his name one last time, followed by gunshots. Misono cracked open one eye and grimaced. The face staring back at him was half-mad, grinning like a loon with arms out-stretched. “Go … to … hell,” he managed through clenched teeth, “you bastard.”

Waving a dismissive hand, Mikuni told him, “No thanks, I’ve seen the view. It’s dreadful. No,” he gestured to the room they were in, the place where All of Love’s Subclass should have been, “I think I like it better here. After all, home is where the heart is.” He glanced towards the unnamed Servamp in the room and held out a hand. “Say, won’t you become mine? I’ll give you a name you won’t soon forget.”

Before All of Love could open his mouth or bare his fangs in a snarl, Jeje shot a warning, intentionally missing his target.

“No?” Mikuni let his hand fall, sighing theatrically. “Pity. But no matter …” Turning his attention back to Misono, he asked, “Now, I guess it’s time for goodbyes?” He patted Misono on the cheek once more, patronizing. “Goodbye, little brother.” Cocking his hand like a gun, he pretended to fire off a shot, “Bang!”

The noose was around his neck again and there was a doll smiling at him from a few paces away. Misono clawed at the black thread that twisted and grasped, crushing his throat and lifting him up. The edges of his vision began to blur. He had never been much for a physical fight to start with, and what a pair they made, he and Lily, as well suited for battle as a school of fish following a porpoise.

Then the pressure was gone and Mikuni was crouching in front of him. He gasped for breath, his hands at his throat protectively, eyeing the blond man that had once been his brother. This person was not that person at all.

“Ah, I forgot something,” Mikuni told him sheepishly, his elbows propped up on his knees as he absently held his chin up with both hands. “There’s something I wanted to ask you.”

He shook his head, refusing to be goaded into speaking when his throat felt like it was on fire.

“You don’t have to say anything,” promised Mikuni. “It’s a yes or no question, anyway. Say,” smiled the blond, “do you regret being born, Misono?”

It hurt worse than being strangled. Words reached places that a Lead couldn’t reach, twisted and tore where something without thorns couldn’t hope to scrape. It hurt, but the pained tears that fell had nothing to do with it. Still, they fell; each drop larger than the last, but in his defiance he raised his head and shook his head.

“Like mother, like son,” Mikuni commented idly, taking off his hat and placing it against his chest. “Funny, too, that you both meet the same fate. It really is too funny. We always kill what we love.” He wasn’t laughing or even smiling as he turned his back and ordered, “Jeje, shoot.”

As if Misono wasn’t worth the blood on his hands. The actual bang of a gun ended his train of thought there, and Misono lay bleeding from a bullet to the throat. Choking and gasping and knowing without a doubt that there would be no relief in sight for him now. He closed his eyes and didn’t open them again.

**Author's Note:**

> I kept it vague(ish), but do I think Mikuni would ever lay a hand on Misono? No. No, I do not. But hey, the devil whispering in your ear is often worse than the one that watches you die.


End file.
